Philosophy 2083F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Homicide, Revolutionary Struggle, Total War
Document Summary
And wars, one must presumably conclude can only be waged by legitimate authorities. We are already in the midst of the uncanny realm of double standards. The whole just war theory collapses into an enabling act for legitimate authorities. Augustine: to insist on the public monopoly of the use of force remains a fundamental step in any process of pacification and securing that monopoly is a precondition of civilized society. The actual enforcement of public monopolies of force, while reducing the number of wars or violent conflicts does not necessarily reduce the dimensions of violence taken as a whole. Difficult to wage war against values, coats might use the term counter value warfare here simply in the sense of deterrence theory, namely as contrasted with counterforce warfare. The idea that such a revolutionary struggle necessarily degenerates into total war only becomes plausible if one conflates a state in order with society which coates in fact does.